


Deformity, Entomology

by wowzaKy



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Buried Alive, F/F, Helen & Mike bond, Helen deserves love, Helen’s POV is cursed I’m so sorry, M/M, Mike Crew Lives, Other relationships are background for now-, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Spiral! Michael "Mike" Crew, still Vast! Mike tho don't worry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowzaKy/pseuds/wowzaKy
Summary: Michael Crew survives Daisy's bullet, only to find himself buried alive.There's only so long an avatar can last, disconnected from their god. There’s only so much a person can take before they begin to reach out for anyone, anything willing to help.Michael Crew prays.A door answers.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Michael "Mike" Crew & Helen
Comments: 20
Kudos: 62





	1. Formicidae

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all! 
> 
> This is my first TMA fic, also known as procrastination from my other works yeehaw. 
> 
> I’m weak for any & all Mike Crew content, so thought I’d contribute. This particular piece was inspired by basically every buried alive! Mike fics, but more specifically, “Exits, Entrances, and Spaces in Between” by voidknight & “Hands Wrapped Around my Throat” by remi_wolf ! 
> 
> unofficial warning of excessive use of italics, as per usual, & gratuitous descriptions of dirt. 
> 
> c/w: character buried alive. Sort-of body horror. Death, as like, a concept.

When Mike woke, the world was dirt. 

For a moment, he was confused. What was- why was the world dirt?  
It certainly hadn’t been earlier.  
No, earlier he’d been in his flat, content after sending some acrophobe tumbling through the glorious, eternally vast sky, and then… The Archivist showed up. He’d been confused then, too. How the hell had The Archivist known where he lived? He’d never interacted with the man in his life. 

Something to look into later. 

Still.

However Sims had found him, there he stood in his doorway, tape recorder in hand. 

At the time, Mike thought him an idiot. 

Amusing in his idiocy, but an idiot nonetheless. 

And yet, despite this, Mike had been polite, civilized even. 

Unfortunately, The Archivist, on the other hand, decided to forgo tact entirely, shoving his recorder where it didn’t belong. Stupid of him. 

That idiot was messing with forces he didn’t understand, he should be thankful all Mike gave him was a taste of vertigo. He’s done more about less. Hell, he threw a guy off a skyscraper once for fun. Mike was in a good mood, though, so not only did he spare Sims life, he decided to humor him and give a statement.

Mike was a private person, but still, he gave The Archivist a statement. If only to get him out of his space.

And after he was done with his story, he released him, satisfied he’d done enough to keep the Eye off his back.

What had...Oh. There’d been a knock, solid against the hardwood of his door. 

A woman, blonde hair styled in a sharp undercut, bright eyes blazing. She’d the air of a predator, but Mike was no prey, so he’d squared his shoulders and prepared to send her falling. 

He never even got the chance.  
She moved quicker than he’d anticipated, and the last thing Mike remembered before the dark had been a sharp pain as his head collided with the corner of his shelf. 

Here, he lost time. He had no idea how long he’d been out. Only that when he woke, his head pulsed, his chest throbbed- had he been shot?- and the world was dirt. 

For a minute, Mike was confused. 

Why was the world- wait.  
Dirt.  
The Archivist.  
The Hunter.  
The throbbing in his chest, what he was certain now was a bullet wound, and the soil and the dirt drinking the blood that surely oozed from his injuries. 

He wasn’t confused anymore.

Buried. 

He’d been-

The world was dirt. 

_Oh fuck._

He couldn’t breathe-

Dirt.

_He couldn’t see, couldn’t cry out-_

Only dirt.

_He’d been shot and buried, buried, fuck he’d been-_

The world was dirt.

Dirt under his nails.  
Dirt under his skin.  
Dirt under dirt under dirt, thick and wet in his throat; he’d made the mistake of screaming when his confusion melted into mud and his eyes wept silt. He wanted to see the sky; he saw dirt, only **fucking** dirt.  
Dirt sinking into every crevice, crack in his skin, sinking into his scar, into his chest where he’d been shot like it could gape his wound wide enough to sink its fingers past his heart to his airway, fill his lungs with dirt like his throat, scrape his insides with crust-coated fingernails and _there was wet in his throat_ , muddy thick sticking under his tongue, between his teeth, choking him.

He couldn’t feel the Vast. He’d forgotten what it felt like without the hum of vertigo in his veins and for the first time in a long time, Mike felt his surroundings infinitesimal.  
His god couldn’t reach him here, in the dirt, in the soil, in the grit and choke and the Buried’s fist wrapped around him, tight as a toddler’s around their favorite toy. _Fuck._

He’d been buried and the world was dirt.

Pressing on him from every angle, The Buried was heavy, suffocating, pinning him down, like he was an insect in a glass case, stolen from a borderless, beautiful blue. 

There’s no way the dirt would let him go, now that it had him. An avatar of The Vast? Buried alive? It was too good to be true. 

He wished it wasn’t true. 

He wished he’d thrown Jonathan Sims into The Vast this morning and never looked back. 

He wished he could fall into The Vast himself, revel in the feeling of being so, so insignificant compared to the stupendous awe of it all. 

Michael Crew wished a lot of things. They rarely came true.

**~~**

Time stopped existing, after a while.

There’s only so long a person can take, confined underground, immobile except for the racing of their own mind, before things like time lose their meaning. 

Days, weeks, months, years- Mike didn’t know how long he’d been in the dirt. Sometime after time stopped existing, his bullet wound healed. He could still feel The Buried reaching into his chest. He could still feel it in his lungs. 

Even though he knew The Vast couldn’t reach him here, he spent days, weeks, months praying. Calling out to the dizzy void for salvation. For a freedom it had granted him before, on a cold day in a bookshop, where he flung himself into its arms in reckless abandon to escape his demon. 

Nothing came. 

He knew The Vast couldn’t reach him here, but that did nothing to quell the aching fear that pierced his heart when nothing came. 

Crushed beneath the surface, in a world of dirt, desperation began to creep up his spine. He needed out. He wouldn’t let The Buried consume him until his inevitable demise. Assuming the earth would let him die. That it wouldn’t just keep him down here for all eternity, feeding off his fear until he forgot how it felt to feel anything else at all, until he forgot everything but the pressure of dirt against his skin, his scar, his soul. 

He’d already forgotten the faces of his friends. Well, friends was subjective. More like fellow acolytes. The Fairchilds, who he only saw every six months or so. Did they think him dead? Did they even know he was missing? It wasn’t unusual for Mike to drop off the map, spend a year or two traveling. It wasn’t unusual for him to ignore Simon’s texts either. There’s only so many “spooky deep sea facts” he could take in an hour. And it’s not like he really spoke to anyone but his fellow Vast avatars on a regular basis- if you counted once or twice a year as “a regular basis”.  
Of course, he knew others. Other avatars who served different entities and whom he also liked to ignore, finding them annoying to be around. Jude, Annabelle, the Lukas family.  
When you’re an avatar, it was important to be informed. To have contacts, to know who to trust- trust as subjective as the concept of friends- and who to avoid. And Mike was _good_ at avoiding. Years of running from The Spiral’s living fractal had taught him that. 

Now, he regretted it, just a bit. 

Maybe if he worked to make actual connections, he wouldn’t be here. He could’ve been saved weeks, months, years ago. But. 

Mike was a private person, seldom did he leave his flat except to feed.

 _God_ , he was so hungry. So, so hungry. When had been the last time he ate? He knew he had before. But that was before. Before was ages before now, and now his stomach panged needlepoints, his energy flickered like a faulty bulb. Every day, although he’d long-since lost the ability to separate his days from his hours, that passed without him feeding, his connection to The Vast weakened. Disconnected as he was, he could still sense its weakening. Mike wasn’t sure what would happen to him if, when, it faded completely. 

After all he’d done to stay alive, he wasn’t sure he was ready to find out.

But his god couldn’t reach him here, and nothing came.  
Resignation sat heavy lead in his gut. Terror and desperation bloomed. Sensations he hadn’t experienced in years. 

He did not want to die down here.  
He did not want his last sight to be dirt, last taste to be mud, last sensation the dry suffocation of soil. 

Mike has always been willing to sacrifice himself to survive. He’s played Russian roulette with Leitners, jumped to what should’ve been his death, willingly became a monster, and gifted his humanity to the sky. All for survival.

So it’s not too big a leap when he begins again to pray. But this time, it’s not to his god. No, he’s established The Vast couldn’t save him from the dirt, and though he ached deep in his soul to be back in the atmosphere, falling undying, lose himself to the dizzy rush of air streaming past, tickling his hair, burning joy against his face, the swoop of his insides as they try to catch up with the rest of him as he falls and falls and is free- He knows he can’t. Knows that even though some visceral part of him whines in longing, he can’t because his god can’t save him from the dirt and _nothing came_

So Mike prays and prays and prays, to anything willing to come. It’s risky, but when the alternative was staying down here, embroiled in fear and the wrongness of his Entity’s antithesis...well, **anything** was better than that. 

He starts with The Flesh. The Boneturners Tale wasn’t for him, but he was amicable enough with it. He hoped. Offering it favors- _as if fear gods needed favors, Mike, who was the idiot now, fuck-_ did nothing, and it was all he could do to not scream, despite how that went last time- the mud in his throat had dried, a thick lump of clay blocking his breathe- _how the **bloody** hell was he breathing-_ So he offers it his life. 

Mike loved The Vast, loved it with a profound, intense faith and adoration that one held for their savior. He was it’s avatar and it was his lord.

But he did not want to die down here. 

Mike offers The Flesh his life over and over and over again, pleading with blood and meat to dig him up. 

Nothing comes. 

Months, years, decades pass and distress gnaws as dirt presses down and he is nothing but an insect framed forever in the earth’s devouring embrace, so he turns to The Web. Spiders, some species at least, creeped below the soil. He offers it his life to control, to puppet. He cries to the Mother. Save me. Save me. _Save me, please, oh god, save me._

The dirt squeezes ever tighter, sticking to and under his skin. It wants to meld into him. It wants to become him. 

Mike doesn’t want to be dirt. 

He cries and cries and cries. 

Nothing comes. 

Years, decades, centuries pass and Mike does not want to die. He can no longer recall the vibrant vertigo of his veins, they’re too mucked with silt, and the tether that ties him to The Vast strains. He doesn’t have long. He does not want to die. So he turns to The Desolation. He thinks he knew avatars of The Desolation- if he did he can’t remember their names, if they existed in the first place- and he sobs prayers through clenched closed lips. Take him, burn him to nothing if it must, just take him away. Please. 

The Buried hums. 

Mike chokes. 

The world is dirt and he does not want to die. 

Nothing comes. 

Decades, minutes, centuries, hours- time stopped existing eons ago and Mike doesn’t care anymore, he just wants out, out, out out **out-** and he prays and prays and prays and cries and cries and sobs and he gapes and in that gape is dirt and **he wants out.**

He offers his life to The Lonely, The Dark, The Stranger, The Hunt, he offers it to almost them all. 

Still, nothing comes. 

_Nothing comes._

_**Nothing fucking comes.** _

And Mike’s lungs are weighed down and he’s suffocating, **really suffocating** , he knows, and the world is dirt, he’s starting to forget what it was like when it wasn’t dirt and he’s so weak. It would be so _easy_ to surrender. But Mike has always been stubborn. He refuses to be consumed. 

Still. 

He’s starting to think death wouldn’t be so bad. 

The End would grant him rest, at least. 

The Buried, he knows, will not. 

He’s it’s favorite toy. He knows it laughs at his pathetic attempts of escape. He knows it delights in his suffering, in his terror. 

So he offers his life to The End. 

Of course, nothing comes, and Michael Crew does not die.

**~~**

When Mike is eight, he allows himself to be persuaded by his best friend Dominic to stay outside in a storm, and is subsequently struck by lightning.  
What follows is a blur.  
White hot pain seizes his limbs as all his nerve synapses fire bright and ozone writhes in the air and in him and he can smell nothing but storm and he can hear nothing but a raw scream and he remembers none of it but he knows. And then there is nothing. And then there is the hospital. And then he is home, and his scar stretches out in eternal fractals, far from his body.  
Mike is eight, and he has been marked.

When Mike is sixteen the monster finds his house. The Lichtenberg figure following him through the years, frightening him and warping his reality. Ozone follows him as well. Mike is sixteen and he dreams of corridors of lightning that stretch and spiral and swirl on forevermore and he sees a forest that never ends, branches straining down from their storm. 

When Mike is seventeen he stumbles across his first Leitner. It opens his eyes to the truth, it fills him with hope. He is still followed by ozone, but he won’t be followed by the Lichtenberg figure for long.  
Mike is seventeen and his house collapses and his parents die, but Mike has long since stopped caring, long since been swallowed by a hunger. He’ll escape his horrors. Even if he has to forgo his humanity. 

When Mike is twenty-two he discovers the Lions Street bookshop. Months are spent combing shelves, blowing money on anything remotely mystical. He is still running, but he’s determined. Nothing will stop him, not now.  
Mike is twenty-two and he binds his monster, his madness, to the book and sacrifices himself to The Vast, in all its empty glory.  
He feeds it and it feeds him.  
He is finally content, and yet, there is still a small section of his brain that’s terrified of The Spiral. 

Mike does his best to forget that fear.

**~~**

His connection is almost gone, now. Replaced by pounds of packed pressure. Mike’s world is dirt. And soon he will be too.

He’s too tired to pray anymore. 

Nothing comes and nothing will. 

...There’s one he’s yet to offer himself too, though. The one that haunted his youth, consumed his nightmares, and marked him ‘til the day he dies. 

_God, he wants to die._

_Please._

_Please let him die, he can’t take this anymore._

If he could, Mike would curl into himself. As it is, he’s forgotten how it feels to move. He’s forgotten so much. 

_He’s so, so afraid._

Anything would be better than this. Anything. If anything means he loses himself to fractals forever, so be it, he can’t take this anymore. 

Centuries, seconds pass and Mike whispers one last prayer. 

_You can have me, I’ll come back, I’m yours._

Dirt worms through his body, caking every organ, muscle, bone. His tether shakes, minutes from the break, and he tastes iron, clay.  
There’s dirt under his nails, his skin, in his veins, between his teeth.  
Around him, the walls squeeze in, crushing him, choking him.  
The Buried is laughing and Mike knows it’s time. 

Still. 

Michael Crew is afraid to die. 

The tether, his last connection to his god begins to snap. 

The dirt presses harder. 

He cannot see but he knows what’s coming. Can feel The Buried’s fingers tighten. 

If he had the energy, he would cry. But he doesn’t. And he is powerless to stop it from taking him. All those thoughts of survival for naught. All his survival for naught. 

Mike doesn’t want to be dirt. 

He doesn’t 

_He_

**“Hello~ It looks like _you_ could use a door!”**


	2. Larva

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike has a slightly better time & Helen makes a friend(?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me last chapter: Next update in the next 2 or so weeks, prob, don't expect much I'm lazy
> 
> Me, two days later: It's update time bitches
> 
> So yeah. here we go.  
> I got my wisdom teeth removed Monday morning & have suddenly found myself ample time to write. So instead of working on the fics I'm procrastinating, I decided to update this. 
> 
> I also just really wanted to write Helen, oop-
> 
> Sorry if she seems ooc, I'm trying my best :') 
> 
> **unofficial c/w: My mediocre writing skills & all of Helen’s POV. Just. That. I'm 99.8% sure I lost brain cells formatting it. _I'm so sorry._**
> 
>   
> ****  
> Official C/W: Trauma from being buried alive.  
> 

The voice is electrifying- when was the last time he heard something that wasn’t his own thoughts or The Buried?- and for the first time in who-knew-how-long, Mike opened his eyes. 

Well. He tried.  
His eyelashes were clumped with dried clay, pasted to his equally mudded cheeks, so when he tried to open them, all he got was a tugging sensation, as if the clay wasn’t clay, but glue. That, coupled with his exhaustion, hunger, desperation, and fear made the act near impossible. Each attempted peek drew tired pain, and a weak whine built up around the mud in his throat. 

Whoever spoke giggled, but the giggle was wrong. Too echoey. Like it had been played back through television static, amplified by a thousand metal tinsel’s. How...The soil should’ve muffled it, but instead, the giggles rang loud in his ears. 

“Oh, sorry!” 

Suddenly, the clay was gone. As if it had never existed. If he was in a better state of mind, Mike would be wary. His caution, his ability to give a single shit, had been buried with him, though. Anything was better than this. And that included whoever, whatever, was with him in his hell. 

Something had come. 

That was all that mattered. 

Lifting his eyelids took more effort than he’d like to admit, but he did it. Blinking the blur away, Mike stared up at his savior(?). 

Fractals. Multicolored spirals, swirling like a kaleidoscope but more. A pang of his almost-erased childhood terror shot through him, but he shoved it back down. He’d prayed for this. He’d prayed and something had come and that was enough because anything was better than becoming dirt. 

The being before him beamed, the corners of their mouth stretching impossibly high. Their eyes glittered rainbow, and Mike knew that if he focused on them too long he’d go mad. Madder. He wasn’t sure he could say he was sane anymore, but again, what did it matter? The rest of the figure was equally hard to process. A pinstriped suit splashed in garish shades ranging from plum purple to neon yellow to a saturated shade of pink that made him nauseous. What might have been heels, or flats, or sandals, equally irritating in color-scheme adorned their feet, which rocked back and forth as they swayed down from a modern-esc door above him, teetering but somehow never falling, ignoring gravity and the weight of earth, defying all physics. And logic, too, considering there’s no conceivable way a door could’ve, should’ve been above him, leaving a small gape of air where'd previously been soil.

Mike opened his mouth, suddenly desperate for oxygen, but instead began to cough. Chunks of thick, wet mud came up, sliding down his chin, warm against his skin. Seeing this, the being above him pursed their lips.

“Well, that won’t do at all.” With a wave of their long, multi-colored nails the weight in his lungs, esophagus, and tongue vanished. Mike continued to cough, the abrupt emptiness jarring and his body unable to cope. An ugly hacking filled the space, accompanied by the musical hum resonating from the open door. 

If he wasn’t too busy trying to chuck a lung, Mike might’ve noted the music sounded like Beyoncé. 

“My name is Helen, pleasure to finally meet you Michael Crew. I can’t say these are the best circumstances, but better late than never, I suppose!” 

Around him, The Buried pulsed, a beating heart...No, a warning drum. It’s laughter stopped, replaced with a threatening rumble as dust began to fall from the...ceiling? Well, the area around the doorway, above him. Seems like it didn’t appreciate The Spiral interrupting its meal. 

Helen giggled again, apparently amused by the way their surroundings began to violently shake. “Well, that’s our cue.” 

And with inhuman strength, they- she?- pulled Mike up and out of his grave and into her arms. 

Clay gone from his eyes, mud gone from his throat, nothing stopped his tears this time around, trailing lines down his pale cheeks. 

He didn’t know why he was crying.

Relief? Horror? 

Who knew. 

Certainly not Mike. 

Dirt boiled up from where he’d laid, racing towards them, but Helen hummed, swivelled around, and simply walked away. The door slammed shut behind her. 

With surprising gentleness, Helen lay him down. The plush carpet was soft below his palm, his other hand gripping his chest as if it could help his organs relearn function, and the texture, one he’d forgotten, one he never thought he’d feel again, sent him into another fit of silent tears. 

He was out. 

Something came. 

He was fucking out. 

“Are you okay, Michael Crew?” Helen was peering down at him, head tilted to the side like a bird, faux concern plastered across her face. Through his tears, he finally noticed how tall she was. Inhumanly so. Her spine stretching at least seven feet high, looming over his crumpled form. Her hands were inhuman, too. Large, her fingers not just spindly as he thought before, but knife-like claws jutting from bone-y hands the size of her torso.  
One of the monster-hands reached down to him, then paused, hesitant. “Anything I can do to help?”

His hacking cough had turned to wheezing gasps, as he finally tasted air that wasn’t tinged with silt and grit and must. Wait. Had he even been breathing while buried? There’s no way he’d enough oxygen, the dirt was packed...fuck, he can’t believe he’s out. He can’t believe he’d been saved. It was unreal. And to be saved by The Spiral- well, Helen, but they were definitely affiliated with the entity- of all things.  
Of course, saved was relative, as Mike was sure he’d merely traded out one death for another, but. He wasn’t buried. And death in these...corridors was assuredly better than the press of The Buried. 

At least he’d die free. 

“Michael?” Oh. Yeah. Helen. He should...he should probably respond…

“...I-It’s,” He wheezed. Jesus, his voice is rough. Guess that’s what happens when you don’t use it for however long. It becomes sandpaper. “It’s Mike.” 

“Oh! Sorry then, Mike! ...Are you okay?”

Was he okay? He wasn’t...he really didn’t know. He’d been shot, buried alive, almost eaten by the ground, and then rescued by his childhood monster- cousin of his childhood monster? Fuck. It was, quite frankly, a whole fucking lot. He’s having a hard time processing the simple feeling of something that wasn’t dirt. Let alone process his own emotions. He’s exhausted, drained in a bone-deep way, and though he’s thankful she’d removed the dirt, he felt unsettlingly hollow. Like someone had taken a spoon and scooped him empty. But. He’s crying, breathing, feeling; he’s doing things he’d given up on ever doing again. Helen’s the first voice he’d heard in ages. The first touch he’d felt in ages. 

Was he okay? 

No. 

But he wasn’t buried, so it would have to do. 

“Where...are we?”

Mike, tears slowing, looked around at his new surroundings. Like Helen, the corridors were difficult to focus on, impossible in architecture and garishly decorated. They had a modern appeal, though. Similar to the flats and houses he saw in magazines, if said flats and houses had been distorted through a fun-house mirror then colored by an artist high on LSD. They were both nothing & completely alike to the corridors in his teenaged dreams; the dreams he’d have when the Lichtenburg figure got too close. Music still echoed through the hall, coming from who-knows-where, and the perfume permeated the air. Helen’s? Or simply the corridor itself? 

Who cared? 

“We’re in my corridors- they used to be Michael’s-not you Michael, different Michael- But they’re mine now that I am Helen.”

Right. Sure. He’d heard weirder explanations before, and as mentioned, he wasn’t in a place to question it. 

Silence settled between the two, music and wheezing aside, and Mike’s eyes drifted shut. As wonderful as it was to see something other than dirt or darkness, the eclectic nature of the hall and Helen, herself, was overstimulating. 

Slumped against the wall of The Spiral, Helen hovering above, that Mike finally succumbed to his exhaustion, fast asleep.

**~~**

  
**The Distortion**   
, now known as Helen, frowned down at her guest.

When she’d gotten the nudge to go save Michael “Mike” Crew, she was intrigued. Before that moment, she’d only known him through her memories as The Distortion, not Helen Richardson, & knew him through her whole, The Spiral.

But she did not _know_ him.

**Not really~**

So, she went where she knew

she was called.

**It wasn’t polite to ignore a caller, after all!**

Who turned out to be in some trouble,

indeed,

lodged in dirt as he was. 

The dirt was fun!

So many places

to put **doors** where there should not be _doors_

& places where there **should not** be places!

The part of her that was still reluctant to let  
go of Helen Richardson was concerned.  
Her guest did not 

look good.

  
**In fact.**  


He looked half-dead.

Covered head-to-toe in **_dirt._**

Pale skin too _ashen_ to be near the realm of healthy.  
Pale blue eyes glassy with p **a** nic &

fear & _tears_

  


& relief.

  
**  
_Relief is good!_   
**  
So’s fear!  


But the fear made her

  
**Guilty**  
&  
Helen didn’t like  


feeling **guilty**. It made her feel bad.

  
_It made her feel like a **mon** st _er_._  
 **But!**

She was

a monster now!

  
& that was _fun!_ **!** _!_

Helen was a **_fun_ monster,** _even if she still sometimes felt human._

Even if 

she sometimes

 **gripped** her

 _humanity_

with her talons,

  
tight as a taut rope,

ever  
closer

to **snapping.**

_Mike was like h **e** r_  
A little.  
He wasn’t as her as she was,  
but,  
he wasn’t not.  
He was _changing,_ too.  


S **h** e could tell.

Whether that was because of her connection to him,  


She couldn’t t _e_ ll.

  
But **he _was._**

Helen was intrigued **!**

  
& **giddy~**  
Jon didn’t want

to talk,

  
which fl **oo** ded the Helen in her with

_ disappointment. _

  
Talking to Jon made Helen feel better.  
Even if  
She was **more tha** n Helen  


**_ Now. _ **

  
She had hoped he would still want to talk.  


He didn’t.

_ He had talked to Michael. _

Helen was also worried.  
For Mike. 

He was asleep.  
He was dead.  
_Mostly!_  
He had c **r** ied,  
& she wanted to comfort him.

_Helen’s parents had comforted her_  
_when Helen cried!_

Michael Shelley’s **did not**.

The Distortion liked Helen’s parents more. 

_she wondered if they missed  
her_

&

They wanted

to comfort him...

He was like **them**  
Marked by the **whole- r part** of them 

Where she the right _hand_

**The Spiral the b ody.**

_Mike a fingerprint!_   
Swirling &

spiraling

  
  


& utterly

 **uniq** ue.    


She could s _ee_  
his **S** car 

It was wonderful **!**

Never-ending fractals

  


Going on

  
& on  


&

**o** n

& on 

_& on_

& on

& o _n_! **!**! 

Never-ending like the one she could tell he **belonged to.**  
Though, that connection was frac _tur_ ed  


**torn**

  
faded like an old Polaroid picture

Helen _loved_ Polaroid cameras

Knew they were coming **back** in style

**She should get one!**  
She’d love to see 

what her corridors looked like,

  


Assuming a camera

could eve _n_ capture it.

  
But that’s the point,  
  
_Isn’t it?_   


She could give one to Mike.

Maybe it’d cheer him **up!**

Helen turned her gaze to her **Polaroid camera**, then

  


back to her guest.

  


He **still** didn’t look t _oo_ good

Of course he wouldn’t, he **wa** s buried alive- 

So, Maybe Later Then.

Helen was  


relatively _new_ to being

  
**  
_h er_   
**

How would she help **Mik** e be Mike _ **?**_

If she still hadn’t

  
****

**Settled**

  


as

  


Helen?

Well, she’d find a way!

Humming, Helen gently scooped Mike from the floor.  


That _couldn’t_ be comfortable!

Her carpets were fluffy.

She didn’t want to dirty them with **mud**.

**Helen never sold dirty houses.**

As she walked on the ceiling, she bobbed her head in time to the click- **clack** of her heels.

Her sandals slapping  
the carpet in tune to ****

** Beyoncé. **

Wh **a** t? If she was going to  
Be a mass of halls  
&  


eat people

She was going to at least have  
a _decen_ t music se _lect_ ion.

Really, Michael had been

  
so

d u l l

  
in **that** regard. 

**Barely any creativity!**

_He’d been in too much pain_

_  


for that

_

__

They were **never** meant to be Michael Shelley…

__

**Helen**

__

_Richardson fit _much_ better!_

__

Even if she hurt Sometimes Not like Mi **c** hael 

__

_She **hurt in her heart**_

__

A longing

__

__

An aching resignation

__

__

A

__

__

**Guilt.**

__

__

Ducking through a classy, _empty_ window frame, Helen placed Mike down on a bed.  
The bed was soft  


__

_Like her carpet!_

_  
But **definitely more** comfortable._

__

She hoped it  
could comfort him

__

__

_ She wanted to co _mf_ ort him. _

__

She took out her camera, smiling,  
& left 

__

There was a garden near Helen’s old flat  
Overflowing with _**gorgeous**_  
multico **lo** red flowers 

__

__

_Beautiful_

__

Wall decoration!

__

__

The walls were a _tad_ touch too empty near her **heart**

__

__

__

Helen would talk to Mike when he was awake. 

__

_She’d comfort him then._

__

**~~**

Mike didn’t expect to wake up.

Really, he was surprised to find himself rubbing sleep from his eyes, as opposed to finally meeting The End. He’d expected The Spiral- or whatever Helen was- to stab him the minute he’d conked out. He had offered it his life, after all. 

But here he was, very much alive as far as he could tell, unstabbed and blinking groggy up at a bubblegum pink ceiling fan. Watching as it spun counterclockwise, before turning around to spin back the opposite faster, then somehow sinking up into the ceiling itself, never slowing. 

_At least he hadn’t woken to dirt._

With a soft groan, he pushed himself up and into a sitting position in the...bed? When had he...why was he in a bed? A sparkling, rainbow quilt sat heavy over his legs. A pressure not dissimilar to the weight of the dirt.  
Abruptly, Mike felt too crowded, cloyed by the blankets draped over him; he was quick to throw them off, letting them pool on the carpet, sucking air in frantic gulps, as if it’d be gone any second and he’d be back to suffocating. 

_His mouth tasted like iron and clay._

Quilt banished to the floor, Mike settled back down into the bed. His limbs were heavy, like they’d been strapped to metal weights while he was asleep. Or perhaps that was atrophy, claiming him while he was crushed. Too immobile to do a damn thing as his body resorted to eating itself to keep him alive, when he should’ve died long before it could. 

If he wasn’t an avatar, he knows he wouldn’t have survived that gunshot. It was smack in the middle of his chest, a hair's width from his heart. That should’ve killed him. It hadn’t. And he’d been buried. And he’d choked. 

A muted throb resonated through his chest. As if thinking about his old injury summoned it back. And all at once, Mike needed to see it. He needed proof it had happened. That it hadn’t just been The Buried, digging a hole into his heart. Giving itself better access to his insides, more room to pack its dirt. 

Pulling his shirt off was a struggle, he’ll admit, positioned as he was and in no state to push himself back up again. But he managed. And all too soon he was staring down at his chest. At his scar, the one he’d spent his whole life hiding under layers of fabric, as if, if no one could see it, it didn’t exist. It thrummed now. Pulsing faint white light. Alive. Like lightning. 

Mike felt sick. 

It wasn’t the only new addition to his chest though. The healed bullet hole was there, too. But it didn’t look like a mere bullet wound. No, it dipped down, a tiny sinkhole in his skin, scar-tissue a deep, ugly purple. Too close to the color of the earth for him to be comfortable. He touched his new scar faintly, fingertips barely brushing the rough skin. It was warm to the touch. _Warm as mud._

This time, Mike **was** sick. 

Agonized heaving filled the room as he leaned over the side of the bed, his empty stomach producing nothing but bile tinged brown. 

Once his sick fit died down, leaving him shaking and shuddering and coated in a thin layer of sweat, Mike curled into himself, squeezing his eyes shut. His shirt had fallen, joining the blankets on the floor, and he lacked the energy to reach it. He doubted he had the energy to wrestle it back on his back, anyways. So, he squeezed his eyes tight and brought his knees towards his head, as he tried to forget what he saw. 

What he was, now. 

_Something new._

In the dirt, he’d sunk into denial. Told himself he couldn’t feel the transformation he was going through, disconnected from his god. Told himself the shock he’d gotten when The Spiral answered was nothing more than metaphorical. 

_He knew it was a lie._

Knew whatever change he was going through, he wasn’t done yet. He could feel it clawing its way through his bones, twirling pirouettes around his muscles, boiling his blood. His connection to The Vast was still weak, but…but it was still there. Whatever was happening to him, it hadn’t let him snap completely. In fact, it’s probably what was holding him together. 

_**That didn’t make him less afraid.**_

But he could do nothing but wait. Wait and see his suffering through. Wait and see if Helen would kill him. Wait and see what he’d become. 

Wrapping his arms around his knees, Mike waited.

**~~**

Skip in her step, Helen    
**hopped**   
through her door.

Her camera swung in circles

around h _er_ neck

like a yo-yo & between her fingers

she held _delicately-_

she didn’t want to scrat   
_ch_   
them!-

pictures.

The pictures were obviously **Polaro** id, despite their size.

**Way too large to have come from** her **ca mera.**

But they did _!_!

Where **_else_** would they have come from?

As soon as she’d shut the door behind her, **she knew.**

Mike was awake!

Helen was all at once ag _ain_  
**worried &**  
excited.

She had not had a guest,

a right & **proper** guest

in

_ages._

& this guest was sad & hurt  
st **i** ll

_Hopefully the bed was a comfort._

She’d go talk to  
him now.

To see.

Maybe he’d like **a pi** cture?  
Helen had always liked Polaroid pictures  
& she was  
ch **e** erf **u** l now  
holdin **g** them!

Opening the door

,the one to the room, _the room she put Mike in_ ,

Helen giggles.

Then she sees Mike

**& she immediately stops.**

His **scar** is

magnificent

_different since she last saw it_

lighting flashes **un** **der** his fl _e_ sh

& the air smells like **ozone**

The hour before the thunderstorm

& he is wrapped up **into himself**  
smaller  
,somehow, then he was in the **dirt.**  
Small like a

_child_

_  
**He isn’t really all that old**   
_

He doesn’t look old at all!

But maybe he is si **mp** ly small?

It would be _rude to ask_ , & Helen prides herself on  
having im **peccable** customer service.

**Oh!!**

He

is looking at **her**!

Big, wide smil _es_!

They’re comforting _!_

Oh no

:(

That didn’t help **at al** l.

“...”

“Hello, Mike.”

“...”

“...What can I do,,, to make you not sad?”

“...Wha-“ _A cough,_ “What?”

“I’m not very good at this.” 

“At what?”

“Making people not sad.

I **scare** them

N **ow**.” 

“...”

“,,Did you not like the bed? _?_ ”

“...Are you going to kill me?”

“No. Why would I?” A tilt of her head,

eyes swirling in confusion.

“I,” _Biting his lip, looking away,_  
“I offered my life to The Spiral.  
 **You came.** ”

“I do not want to kill you, Mike!”

“Why?”

**“Why would I kill a part of me?”**

“...”

**~~**

Oh.

He knew, didn’t want to acknowledge, but…

It’s different having it confirmed by Helen, one of The Spiral’s own. 

Vertigo hadn’t returned to him. 

_Something else_ ran through him, instead. 

He was afraid to see what his domain looked like now, assuming he still had one. Was he even still an avatar? Or something else? _What was he?_

“Mike?”

He hunched back into himself, fingernails marking crescent moons into his elbows. He’d have to just...deal with it. He’d prayed. He’d offered. He was out. Anything was better than the dirt, than becoming dirt, he’d told himself that and it was true. So why was he still afraid? Was it because The Spiral had haunted him first, driven him to near-suicidal risks? Was it the uncertainty of what came next, what his future held, or was it the fact that he now had a future in the first place?

Michael Crew expected to die. He hadn’t. He hadn’t died. _So **why** was he afraid?_

“Would you like a picture?” 

Huh? 

Sure enough, Helen held a picture out to him, carefully balanced between two of her fingers. Confused, anxious, overwhelmed as he was, Mike slid it from her silently. 

The comically oversized Polaroid depicted what could’ve been either an aggressively up-close rose, the petals spiraling down into themselves- what did he expect?- or a zoomed out picture of a blood-red bedsheets, arranged artfully. It hurt to look at, but again, what did he expect??? 

If he ignored the ache behind his eyes, it was quite a lovely picture. 

But that may just be his sudden proclivity to anything that wasn’t dirt, soil, or mud. 

Why had she given this to him? 

Because he was, apparently, like her? 

Mike looked up from the photo, nervous bafflement clear on his face. Helen beamed back at him- which is when he saw the camera swinging around her neck. 

“Do you like it?” 

“It’s...yeah, it’s nice.” 

“Wonderful! They’re for my heart, Michael- the one who isn’t you- kept the place dreadfully drab, but if you like it, you can keep that one?” 

Helen held the same hesitation he’d seen in her earlier. Before he thought she was trying to trick him, and maybe she was, but after talking to her proper, he felt, if possible, more confused. That was The Spiral’s point, though. Still. Something in the curve of her form made Mike tentative to refuse her...gift. 

Mike could do nothing here but wait. What was there to lose when you were little more than a hollowed shell of a person...an avatar? When you’d lost yourself long ago? 

“Thank you.” 

The corners of Helen’s mouth twist upwards again, like they had when she’d freed him, and she claps her hands, ringing like a jostled bag of bones. The other pictures in her grasp somehow avoid being sliced, which is honestly impressive. 

Unsure of what else to do, to say, Mike looked back down at the Polaroid. Trailed it’s curves with his eyes, let himself become lost in it. Sunk back into the mattress and tried to ignore how it hugged him. 

_He was out._

He heard Helen begin to flit about the room, humming again her discordant tune. Thank god she didn’t question his silence. Their conversation, brief as it was, drained him of what vigor he regained while conscious- not like he’d gained much in his mute panic. 

But. 

It was nice, not being alone.

**~~**

The room she left Mike in was a mess.

It wo **uld** n’t be _polite_ to lea **v** e it  
like this! So, with a flick of her wrist, Helen began to remodel. Banishing the bile

gross

from the floor & piling the neatly folded quilt into a drawer which **  
_had always been there_   
**  
_  
of course   
_

Their talk left her

feeling better.

He said her picture was nice!

She thinks he is feeling _better_

t **o** o.

Chartreuse frames would  
look stunning > here!  
 **Straight from a magazine** _!_

Time is hard, but Helen

knew she wouldn’t have to eat

for a bit.

That also _made_ her feel better,  
even if she  
 _needed t o eat_  
to survive

It is _instinct_.

Like how babies know to drink

**their mother’s milk.**

Or how a **flower gr** ows it’s roots

down l **o** w

 _She doesn’t think it_  
_She just knows._

Helen **liked bei** ng **_Helen_**

Finished with her tidying, Helen gig **gl** es,

over by her _doo_ r, & waves

“Goodbye _~_ ” 

To Mike. 

_He still needed rest,  
she could tell._

She’d be back

Event **u** ally

**They had to still** talk

talk

** Spiral-talk **

To the best of her _  
**abil**   
_**ity**

When he

acce _p_ ted

his new reality

Reality was funny **!**  
L _yin_ g to i _tse_ lf

about being real

Like it **wa _s n_ o**t simply

paper mache

& mol **d** able clay _~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed, yeehaw.
> 
> Lemme know down below if anyone has any comments, questions, or concerns. Words are hard & idk how I feel about this chapter, so any & all feedback is hella appreciated. 
> 
> If y'all haven't noticed, I don't really have a set plan for the end of this fic yet, so we shall see where this takes us, lmao. 
> 
> Next chap. we get some diff. points of view uwu

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this first one kinda drops off before my au really takes off, but rest assured there’s ample Helen screen time next chapter. 
> 
> I don’t have a set update schedule, but expect chapter 2 in the next 2 weeks or so, probably. 
> 
> Hope y’all enjoyed !


End file.
